This May Explain Why Pain Lasts Longer for Women

When men complain of pain, they're often taken seriously. When women do it, they're often viewed as dramatic or hysterical. But new research suggests women's pain is not only very real, but longer lasting than what men experience, reports the Wall Street Journal. A new study in Science Immunology suggests testosterone helps men recover from pain faster and develop chronic pain less often than women. After traumatic injuries, 172 women and 73 men rated their pain over 12 weeks. At first, the men and women had "roughly the same pain severity," per NBC News. During recovery, however, the men's pain eased more quickly, and their blood showed higher levels of interleukin-10, a molecule that helps dial down pain and inflammation.

Lab work in mice mirrored the human data, and when researchers removed the ovaries of female mice and added a testosterone-derived hormone, those mice showed higher levels of interleukin-10 and recovered more quickly than other female mice. Testosterone was ultimately found to increase production of interleukin-10 from white blood cells, per NBC. The findings, the researchers stress, counter stereotypes that women's pain is "in their head" and instead point to biology behind chronic pain. Another recent study found that more than half of chronic pain conditions are more prevalent in women than in men, and "women present with greater disability and loss of function due to pain compared with men." Experts are now looking at interleukin-10 as a potential new treatment option.